


Tales from The Beyond

by scrubbadub



Category: South Park, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Emetophobia, Gross, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Vomiting, i mean its a corruption based leitner whaddyou want from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22515121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrubbadub/pseuds/scrubbadub
Summary: After a school trip to England leaves Kyle in possession of a very mysterious, unsettling book, he takes it upon himself to find out what's so unsettling about it in the first place.There are consequences.
Relationships: Kyle Broflovski/Jimmy Valmer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Beginning

There is no doubt in Kyle Broflovski’s mind that this place fucking sucks. He knows it from the moment he steps onto wet asphalt, getting off of the bus that took him and his classmates out from the airport to their hotel, and he knows it now, damp and sulking, his friends by his side, as he stomps down the sidewalk of London, wishing desperately that he can go home.

“And then she was like, no, Stan, you can’t fucking do that because you can’t cut through glass with a pizza cutter, and I told her that it’d still _look_ cool, you know, there’d be all these designs in the glass and everything--”

He doesn’t know what Stan’s talking about, he’s mostly tuned the conversation out by now, but as he stuffs his hands back in his pockets, looking around, something catches his eye.

“Hold up, you guys.” The three of them pause as Kyle stops and looks across the street. Their chaperone is a little ways behind them, then easily catches up as he stops to stare, and stares over at the shop too. It’s one of their teachers. He doesn’t remember her name.

“Oh, look at that! It’s a little book store! Did you want to go inside and check it out, boys?” He snaps back in focus. Something about that place makes him feel… sick. Not anything strong, just a sort of lingering malaise that tries to settle in his mind, an uneasiness that calls to him.

“Fuck no. Who reads books now?” Ohh, so it’s going to be like that. If Cartman doesn’t want to go, fuck that, he’s going in.

“No, actually, I do want to go in. I like reading new books! Gives me something to do, you know?” He looks both ways before crossing the small, narrow street and waits for the other guys and the teacher to follow, listening to the rest of them talk as he does.

“Oh, you fucking suck up.” There’s a ‘language’ parroted from the teacher, and Kenny snickers behind his parka. “Don’t laugh at me, I’m right! He’s totally being a suck up! He didn’t want to go in until I said something, you guys fuckin’ know it.”

“Shut up, Cartman, it’s not a big deal! I’m just gonna get some books and then we’ll go back to the hotel and you can finally stop bitching about how hungry you are. God.” There’s a doorbell that jingles on his way in. It’s a stupid thing to notice, but it catches him off guard, just a little, and gives him yet another reason to dislike being here. It’s so fucking _weird._ Who keeps little doorbells on their doors? 

“It’s not my fault that British food sucks balls, Kyle. I want something edible and all they’ve tried feeding us is some gross looking dog shit on a plate.” There’s some muffled response from Kenny and they start getting into it, and he blocks it out for his own sanity, letting out a sigh.

The shop smells like old, well-worn book pages, a little like dust, and ink; it’s not a bad smell, but the uneasiness still hasn’t left him. It’s stronger, in here, actually, settles deeper into his bones, and he can’t quite put his finger on why. He spends a little bit wandering around the bookshelves and thumbing through various books, Stan sticking close, Kenny and Cartman mingling around the other side of the store with the chaperone still following them, and he’s just about getting ready to leave with no good finds before there’s a throat clear behind him. 

He jumps and turns around. It’s an older looking man with grey hair, streaks of brown still visible at the roots, and his eyes hold a knowledge that Kyle can’t quite put his finger on; they look sad, worn, almost, like he’s seen things he can’t fully wrap his mind around, even now, and it makes him frown. “I’d be careful if I were you.”

“What?” Fuckin’ weird ass British guy. His accent is crisp, curt and sharp, and it holds an edge to it he didn’t expect. He thought the guy looked more like the countryside British guy type, not a London accent sort of guy.

“Some of these books aren’t for children. Just… be careful.” He walks away, and Kyle watches him, rolling his eyes to Stan. Stan just shrugs and crosses his arms and keeps looking with him for books.

That’s when he sees it.

It’s half covered by a pile of books, shoved in what looks like a bargain bin, marked half price, and the little tag clipped onto it looks almost like it’s cutting through the thickly bound leather. There’s no cover on the book, nor is there any indication outward what it might be about, but he reaches for the pile covering it, setting them aside. He picks it up.

It feels wet, slimy, like someone dropped it in a mud puddle, maybe forgot to wipe some mildew off of it, but there’s no moisture to be seen on it. Stan looks uncomfortable. “... dude, maybe we should get a different book. That kind of looks fucked up.”

He’s tempted to say yes- but the part of him that begs to understand that which he does not know tells him otherwise. The stubborn pride in him wins out and he frowns further. “No way, Stan, look at this thing! It could be some sort of antique. What if we got it marked and it turned out to be super priceless or something, we could make money off of that! Or what if it’s actually a really good book?”

“I don’t know, man. I just… something about that book wigs me the fuck out.” He’s not wrong. Holding it for too long is beginning to make him feel nauseous, a sick, curdling feeling in the pit of his stomach manifesting, bile threatening to rise up from his throat and upset itself into the world, cement itself as a reality, but he swallows it down. He pulls out a glove from his pocket, sets the book back down, and the feeling eases up in increments. Once he feels a little better, he shoves the glove back onto his hand, picks up the book, and storms over to the counter, slamming it down.

“I want this book.”

The shopkeeper looks startled, then looks down at the novel in question, and his eyes go wide. Kyle can see fear in his eyes, the frightened, unbridled sort of fear that you only get when you know what something is capable of, when you’ve encountered that which it can know and do, and there's hesitance to his hands when he takes the tag off the book and looks at the price.

“... you’re _sure_ you want this book.”

“Yeah! Nothing else really caught my eye, you know? And this one looks interesting enough that I thought it might be worth reading.” He watches as the shopkeeper thinks, then he puts the tag down, pushes the book back towards Kyle, and sniffs.

“Then you take care. This book has brought me nothing but a _curse._ Maybe it’ll treat you better than it could I, boy.” That’s not fucking ominous at all. Stan gives him a look.

“Wait, aren’t you gonna make me pay for it?”

“For something like this? No. I just want it _gone._ ” That’s that, it seems, because the shopkeeper is walking away.

He picks the book back up gingerly with his gloved hand and starts back towards the main group, then pauses and sets it back down, putting on his other glove. He doesn’t want to hold it with just one hand. Cartman might try to take it from him or something and ruin it.

Nothing particularly noteworthy after that happens on the way back to the hotel, just some trivial bickering, standard shit, and when they get back, everyone starts to get ready to go out to get food- but he asks if he can stay behind. He wants some privacy to really buckle down and read this fucking thing.

By the time everyone leaves, Jimmy's one of the last to go. Kyle's already grabbed a soda from one of the little minifridges in his hotel room and settled down on the bed, gloves still on, even if he's shed his jacket by this point, and it catches him off guard ever so slightly when Jimmy doesn't leave as well. "... You good?"

"I was just- just wondering if you want-wanted me to get you some fun- fuh--" A small pause is observed, then Jimmy continues on, like nothing is abnormal. "Some food while we're eating."

Oh. That's… fuck, that's really sweet of him to offer. "Shit, uh- I mean, I don't want to, you know, inconvenience you guys--"

"It's not an incon-in-inconve-- a problem. I don't want you to go hungry because you're all caught- all caught up in some new book." That earns a chuckle and a wry smile, though there's some distant part of him that wants to snap back, defend himself. He doesn't let it, this time, because he knows Jimmy well enough to know his judgement only goes surface level. He means the best, unlike some people.

"... Sure. Get me some soup if you can?"

"I'll see if I can't- if I can't get something ko-kosher for you." Jimmy hobbles out the door, after that, and he watches him leave almost forlornly, something yearning and earnest resting deep in his chest. He can't place it well, and he knows the kind of feeling that comes after, but he's reluctant to place it in the first place. That kind of affection is dangerous.

It's almost enough to take his mind off the book, but it doesn't, and once he's sure that there's nobody coming back, he grabs the book carefully, taking caution, and opens the cover. 

It feels… taboo, to a point, to open this, to read, and he has the idea that he should take notes. That he should study this, keep an eye out for any abnormalities, document the sickness settling back in his gut and mind as he starts to skim over to cover page.

It looks old, the pages yellow with age, smelling faintly of mildew and something bitter he can't put to the mind yet, coy and metallic; he stops, then grabs his bag and pulls out a notebook, then a pen, and starts scribbling things down.

_\- pages are old. it's entirely possible that this book has been around for a while. there's no printing date. worth it to maybe check around and see if anyone can identify the age? maybe.  
\- jurgen leitner is the author? publisher? unclear. whoever this guy is he made a weird ass book. worth it to look into who jurgen leitner is? maybe.  
\- i fucking hate england._

Jurgen Leitner, huh? That's the author's name. It's scrawled in messy ink, the name of the book above that in bigger letters, handwriting just as messy, almost as if someone had hurried to try and name the thing before placing it out into the world.

 _Tales from The Beyond_.

It sounds like a fantasy novel, if he's being honest, and a dry one at that. He's disinterested, now, to a point, but there's still some deeply unsettled part of him that wants to find out what lies beyond the next page, some primal, terrified section of his brain urging him on, curiosity and terror all wrapped in one. He doesn't know where it came from. His phone buzzes and he checks it blankly, then sets it back down, and starts to read.

It’s… surprisingly dry text, for the title of the book. He expected it to be a little tired and uninspired already, because who _names_ a book that, but as he starts to read through the first paragraph and beyond, he’s immediately unsettled.

It’s just the same words over and over again. _I am hurt._

This goes on for several pages before the text abruptly cuts off, and he grabs a highlighter out of his bag, uncaps it, and marks the spot. This is a mistake. One of many mistakes leading up to this specific mistake, in fact.

He is immediately and violently overcome with a sickening, gut-wrenching nausea, a bone-deep and fierce unease that rips at his stomach and demands emptiness, a whisper in the back of his mind, a _you are hurt you must flee_ , and he bolts off of the bed, book momentarily abandoned, and shoves his head into the toilet, retching.

It’s the most painful bout of vomiting he has ever experienced, and Kyle has been sick before. He knows what it’s like to be in pain. He has _died_ before, in fact. This, though, this feels like there’s some unseen entity scooping out the contents of his stomach and forcing him to upend it, bile and half-digested snacks ending up in the toilet water, and even when there’s nothing left _to_ vomit up, anymore, his stomach still cramps, still painfully curls in on itself, or, at least, feels like it.

It’s an indeterminate amount of time before he’s able to detach himself from the toilet and the room smells of sick, bitter bile when he raises his head, rank and hanging heavy in the air; he wipes off his chin and grabs some toilet paper, wipes off his face, and rummages around for a toothbrush, grimacing. God. What the fuck. Flushing the toilet before he forgets, he’s distantly distracted by the still painful cramps trying to retake his stomach.

So he’s not marking the paper. Right.

Brushing his teeth and trying to chase the taste of half digested food and stomach acid out of his mouth, he clears his throat and swallows down a cup of water, gagging a few times. His stomach decides to settle for compromising, though, and lets it stay, and he wobbles out of the bathroom, using the doorway as support. Okay. He’s… hesitant to continue reading after that.

Never has he been so readily overtaken by immediate sickness like that. There’s always some sort of warning, some sort of… well, there was warning, he thinks, he was feeling bad earlier--

_Only when holding the book, though._

There is the quiet realization dawning on him that no matter where he goes, strange things are apparently going to follow, and that _Tales from The Beyond_ by Jurgen Leitner is no exception to this rule; distantly, he wishes that he could just put the book down and give it away tomorrow, leave this all behind, forget that he was invested in solving this mystery in the first place, but now that he knows that the book has something to unlock, now that he knows that it has something _he does not know_ , he can’t help but follow this through to the end.

No matter what it takes. He has to know. He needs to know how it ends.

He very cautiously sits back down on the bed and observes the page he was last on, and narrows his eyes. The highlighter mark is gone. In its place is a stain, dark and maroon, fresh looking, but he can’t remember where there could have been anything to make that.

Cool. So that’s how it’s gonna be.

He clicks his pen back open and starts scribbling notes.

_\- do not write on the paper. do not mark the paper in any kind of way. there will be consequences. i would know. unless you’re eric cartman, in which case, fucking go ahead, i want to see you try.  
\- writing on the paper in any sort of way or i think just marking it will make you vomit. i hate that i have to specify this but this was the most intense and painful kind of vomiting i have ever experienced, and i have experienced a lot of kinds. i’m healthy, i promise.  
\- the only words that show up for about five entire pages are the words “i am hurt”. it then abruptly cuts off and the next page is blank. i have yet to turn to the next page, but i’m pretty sure there’s going to be something new.  
\-- seriously. i fucking hate england. why the fuck is it that whenever we all do something it’s me that ends up getting into the weird shit? i literally just want to go home. fuck you, jurgen leitner._

Kyle turns the page. There’s actual text, this time. He’s… dizzy, actually. Looking over at the clock, he realizes that it’s been about two hours since he started reading. How the fuck did that happen? It’s not a big book and he’s only six pages in, how do you spend two entire hours with text that little in numbers- unless, of course, he just didn’t notice because he ended up throwing up.

That would also mean that everyone else is taking their sweet time getting back from eating, or something held them up.

… he kind of wishes he had gone with them, now. Maybe he could have looked over this with Jimmy, or someone else rational. They would have been able to help him identify what the fresh fuck is going on with this book a little better for sure.

_I am hurt. I run from it, but there is no running. There is no end. You will run, too, but you will find no end. It breathes. You can hear it. So can I. It smells like rot. It smells like death. I am hurt._

_It did not hurt me. It is kind. Fear it._

It goes on to continue the same words for the next five pages, again, and he’s jolted out of his reading by voices. For a moment, he’s terrified of who it might be, breathing harsh, slightly labored, but then he recognizes Jimmy and Stan out of the mix, and he can feel his heart stop pounding. Breathing doesn’t get any easier, though, which is… slightly alarming, since Stan’s the one with asthma, not him, but he places it out of his mind and swallows. 

The book gets shoved under his pillow and he watches Jimmy shuffle into the room carefully with a chaperone, and he stops. “... Kyle, are you _su-sure_ you’re okay? You kind of look--”

“I’m fine!” It’s snappy, he knows, but he can’t stand the idea of showing vulnerability, especially not like this. Especially not when he’s this close to figuring out what’s going on with this book. No matter the cost, he has to figure out why it’s written the way it is. Who’s the person who got hurt? What’s chasing them? Why the complicated relationship with the thing chasing it, and why the fuck does it assumedly smell like rot and blood and sickness?

… those last two things, it did not specify, but the image presents itself clearly enough in his mind that he is alarmed by the thought. How easily it came to him in place of death. “I’m fine. I promise. I just-- I want to go home, okay?”

“Oh! You’re- you’re homesick. I get that. I miss South Park, too. Why, just earlier, I was tell- I was telling Stan how different London is from Am- Ameri- America. Not in a bad way, just, just in a different, different sort of way, you know?” Jimmy limps his way over to Kyle and sits on the bed next to him, mindful of his writing supplies and notebook, and Kyle feels… less lonely.

At least he has someone in his side of the ring in this fucked up situation. “You guys took a while, you know that, right?”

“I’m sorry, we got, we got caught up in tr- in traaa- in traffic. There was someone in front of our, of our car who ended up stopping in- in the middle of the road, it, it, it was actually quite inter- interest- int- inter-- it was actually fun to watch, until the guy got, got out of his car and tried to- to- to fistfight the other person in the other- the other car.” A small chuckle.

Kyle suppresses the urge to lean on Jimmy as he sets his leftovers on the bed and sits down fully and tries to push the book from his mind, relishing the reprieve. If he doesn't think about it, focuses on what's now and what's tangible, the constant in his life rather than the unstable, he can ignore it. He can ignore the _I am hurt_ chanting it's mantra quietly but insistently in the back of his mind, persistent and heavy.

"A fistfight? Holy shit. You guys are okay, right?"

"Well, if we were not okay, I would- I wouldn't be here, I think. So yes." Jimmy looks just a little smug after that response and he rolls his eyes, punching him lightly in the shoulder. He can feel pieces of him returning in parts, slowly shuffling back into place. What was the trigger, he wonders? What marked the retreat from his mind?

"Oh! I, I got, I got you food while we were- were out, I know that you said you- you weren't h- hungry, but I figured that you could- could at least eat something late- la- later, you know?" Jimmy digs through the bag of leftovers he had brought in and hands Kyle a box, then opens the other box and shows off some pasta.

For Jimmy's credit, his own pasta doesn't look too bad. Looks like Olive Garden levels of good, but London doesn't have Olive Garden, so he doesn't know where they got it from. If Jimmy says Nando's he might actually just book a ticket and leave right fucking now.

“I appreciate it. Did you manage to get something kosher?” He’s not super strict with the whole kosher diet thing, he knows his mom _wants_ to be, it’s just-- hard. It’s hard to try and adhere to a lot of things, and his dad may stick with it, for the most part, but he’s never really… forced himself to try and stay kosher? He tries. He should be trying harder.

“Actually- I, I did! I asked if there was, if there was anything ko- kosher on the menu, and they- they told me which items we- which items were. I got you some of the- the halibut dish, I heard it’s very good. London has a lot of- a lot of seafood.” Huh. He watches Jimmy get up off of the bed to go stick his own food into the little minifridge, smiling fondly, and opens his own box.

He is almost immediately repulsed.

There’s no _reason_ for the food to be rotten. There would have been no real time for the food to have rotted to this degree from the trip home from whatever restaurant they all ate at, and yet when he forces himself to look back down into the takeout box, the smell is vile, rank, bittersweet with the scent of decay. If he looks closely enough, he can see things wriggling about, little maggots digging their way into the fish, and he has to toss the box aside and swallow down more vomit.

“Jimmy, that’s not, that’s not, uh- I’m throwing that away. I’m sorry.” 

“Is there some- something wrong with it?” Ohh. Fuck his life. If Jimmy thinks the food is good, then it was good when he had it. If he thinks about it, makes the connection between rot and sickness and that _shitty book_ , it makes sense, but he doesn’t want it to. He wants his brain to stop for five seconds and stop connecting dots that don’t need to be.

“It’s rotten.” That’s all he says. He doesn’t have to say anything more, because the smell of rotting, slightly molding, infested food is already wafting out of the takeout box, and Jimmy’s wrinkling his nose at it. Standing up off of the bed himself, he grabs it gingerly and finds the nearest trash can, opening the lid to dump it in. The lid gets closed, and the evidence is gone, and he takes a deep breath.

The smell still hasn’t left. At least, not for him. He can still feel bile in the back of his throat, thick and heavy, waiting for a chance to force itself back out, what little remains there, and Jimmy looks worried. “I… I- I didn’t know.”

“No, it’s not- you didn’t do it on purpose. There’s something really fucked up going on, Jimmy, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it, okay? This? This here? This wasn’t you.” He’s resolute in this fact.

“I just- I don’t under-understa-understand. When I was in the car, it- it was perfectly fuh- fine. There was nothing wrong with the, the- the food, I could have sworn-” He rubs at his face. He’s dizzy. 

“It’s not your _fault_ , okay? Look at me. It’s not your fault.” That doesn’t really seem to do anything to ease Jimmy’s worry, and he watches as he offers the remaining, intact leftovers to him, hand outstretched as it holds the bag. There’s something that swells in his chest, then, something indescribable and benevolent, something he’s afraid to touch, and he wishes for it to remain untouchable.

He knows plenty of people who’d offer to do things for him, but never selflessly. That’s not how it works in South Park. There’s always a reason behind doing something. Jimmy, though? Jimmy never has a reason to do what he’s doing. Maybe he’s doing it in the hope that other people are going to think he’s better for it, but never with Kyle. Never for clout, not with him.

He hopes so, anyways.

Sitting back down on the bed, he opens the leftovers. They’re still a little warm, so he thinks he can stomach it. The more he stops thinking about that goddamn book, the less dizzy he is, the less sick his stomach feels, and the easier it gets to breathe, now that he thinks about it. He could have been dizzy because of lack of oxygen. He hadn’t noticed it, but he’d been getting increasingly more and more out of breath, it’d been getting harder to catch his breath every so often, and he only notices it now because of the steady decline in tightness there.

“... thank you, Jimmy. You’re sure about this?”

“Hey. It- it’s okay. It’s the least I can- can do after giving you what-what-whatever was in that other box, you- you know?” There’s a tender smile from Jimmy, still laced with worry and confusion, but fading back. He thinks, maybe, he could let this happen if it were like this, just in better circumstances. Something tender for himself, the kind of attention he doesn’t have to fight for, someone who can hold their own against the unkindness and frustrations of the world, someone as strong as he is; he could be allowed that, in private, tender brushes of his hand against Jimmy’s, the kind of wish that only a teenager can have, right? He deserves something kind.

“... you know what? Why don’t we watch a movie or something? I could keep you company until you fall asleep.” Jimmy finally recovers from his worry, and Kyle’s glad. He doesn’t forget the situation he’s got himself into, not by a long shot, but it fades to the back of his mind, eclipsed by the joy he starts to feel encompassed in Jimmy’s own radiance.

“I like that idea! We- we could watch some A- Ass- Asses of Fire, maybe, even if the hu- the humor is a little ru- rudim- rudiment- basic, sometimes. You know what I mean. It’s not bad, but it is very… childish? Something to laugh at when- when you need a pick me up!” A chuckle. 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any Terrance and Phillip material. I guess I don’t like to think about them because of the whole… fuckin’- thing, that I really don’t like getting into, but their comedy still does make me laugh. What was, how did the song go? Shut your fucking face, uncle fuckeeer-” Jimmy starts to laugh, a slightly stilted, hearty laugh, one from the chest, and it makes Kyle beam. He’s… happy. Today’s sucked, but he’s happy right now, and that’s what’s important.

“You’re a boner-biting a- asshole, uncle fuckeeeer--” In the middle of reciting lyrics, Kyle pulls out his laptop from his bag and starts looking for the movie online, and makes a point not to worry about how the teachers all managed to pay for hotel internet, pulling it up. It’s okay to pirate movies like that if they’ve been out for a while, he reasons, as long as it’s from a large corporation. Large corporations don’t care about people and therefore they have no rights or say in the matter.

Like Disney.

God, that makes him sound like Cartman, the more he thinks about it, so he chooses to keep that thought to himself and distance himself from it, then puts the movie on, sitting next to Jimmy on the bed, taking a deep breath. 

It’s okay, he tells himself. He can stop thinking about Leitners and sickness and things being chased and letters on a page, instead focus on the warmth of Jimmy’s body next to his as they watch a stupid movie together, the ease in which his shoulder fits into the crook of his arm, and he can relax. He still feels kind of shitty, but he’s at least got some food in his stomach, now, regardless of whether or not it wants to sit well. He has something solid to cling to.

Eventually, the movie ends, Jimmy’s fallen asleep, and he’s halfway there, head resting on his shoulder heavily, fatigue and groggy fog trying to cloud his mind and drag him under, but he can’t quite let himself fall asleep. He’s like this for what feels like a few hours before the light of his idle laptop finally urges him to get up, rub some sleep out of his eyes, and shut it closed, blinking blearily. 

Gently lowering Jimmy properly down onto the bed, he drags the covers over him and puts his crutches next to the bed where they can easily be reached, looking around. There’s still a lamp light on, shining dim but true, and the clock says 3 AM. Huh.

He looks over at his bed.

The shadows seem starker, more gaunt around where his bed lays, contrasted by the comfort that is Jimmy’s bed, and he can see his chaperone sleeping on the couch, blankets pulled tight around them. They must have came in, passed out after he was trying to get some sleep with Jimmy.

The book is not under his pillow. It sits on top of the pillow, menacing, and even though he knows in his mind that a book can’t be menacing, it feels like it either way.

He picks it up, and he is quickly reminded why he was so hesitant to do so in the first place. The nausea returns in violent, vicious waves, grabbing him by the stomach and lungs, threatening to topple him if he’s not careful, but he carries on. He has to know how this ends. He has to see it through to the succession, figure out what kind of horror lies beyond these pages, pick it apart piece by piece until he finally understands what the narrator’s done, and then? Then he can rest.

He grabs his pen out of his bag and turns on his phone light, and he starts reading. He knows better than to continue to make notes in the pages of the book. The last time he did that, there were severe consequences. He’s learned by now.

He gets about seven pages in from where he was at, the same repetition, that feeling of malaise and fatigue growing with each passing word, and then finally, there’s a page of substance. Something worth reading, actual content to the book, though the phrasing is… stilted, worded oddly.

_I am sick._

_It is not normal. They tell me I’ve not long. I tell them they can help, and they shake their heads. I am young. Is this not wrong? I beg of them._

_They turn their heads. I am told to leave._

_There is no room in my lungs for the air that I breathe. I beg it to remain. It does not listen. It is defiant. I do not know why._

_Please help me. Please help me. I am being hunted down. There is something lurking. It wants to slaughter me. I think I am hurt. I think I have been hurt for a very long time._

_It just took this long to notice._

_Please help me._

By the time he’s done reading through the passage, he’s short of breath, the air constricting in his lungs painfully, trying to find some sort of purchase inside his body and failing miserably, and he has to take a moment to try and catch his breath. It’s… mostly unsuccessful, he thinks, and by the time he _does_ manage to do so, his vision’s gone spotty and slightly grey with the effort of it all, world tilting just a little dangerously.

He’s scared. He’s never been a coward, though, so he continues reading.

There’s that repetition again, this time the phrase _please help me_ instead of _I am hurt_ , an insistent plea, quiet and desperate, and he thinks if he closes his eyes, focuses hard enough, he can feel the desperation himself. Somewhere deep, closed off, terrified and afraid of what lies beyond.

He stops. There’s nothing on this page. He’s about halfway through the book. There’s a stain on the page next to it, dark and maroon, just a little crusty, and when he draws his hand away from the book, he’s surprised to see it’s covered in blood. It looks old, feels chalky and dusty when he rubs his fingers together, but he doesn’t have enough sense of mind to try and piece together if it’s his or someone else’s. He thinks it’s too warm in here.

He should adjust the thermostat, probably.

Turning the page, hand trembling ever so slightly, his stomach gives an ominous gurgle and he holds back a breath, forcing nausea down. There’s something going wrong, maybe, something deep inside of him trying desperately not to break, not to crumble underneath the weight of whatever monstrosity is trying to claw through him, and he’s not sure if he has the strength or fight in him to continue beating it back. How long can he go like this? How long has he gone before?

_I am saved._

Something new. The words on this page are… messy, hurried, written in something red, something he knows deep down to not be ink, and he turns the page. He’s halfway through. He could just… stick it out. He could keep going.

_I have stopped running. It embraces me. There is no air left for me to breathe. It chased me, but it wanted to love me. To hold me._

_I have stopped feeling my fingers. Where have they gone? Are they theirs, now, too? I wish them luck. They should be here. I am writing this._

_You are reading this. You can hear me._

‘ _You can hear me._ ’

He can hear whatever they are. He blinks, and the room shifts before settling back into its normal state, and he wipes his nose. There’s blood on his hand when he pulls it away. He blinks again, and he can see morning light starting to poke through the blinds.

When did… when did it get that early in the morning? He wasn’t up for that long. He wasn’t awake long enough for the trash in the trash bin to have started collecting flies, for it to start gathering little patches of grey, dusty green mold gathering in the corners next to it, for there to be little things crawling around the box of leftovers left out near the little minifridge on accident. He wasn’t awake long enough for these things to happen. Right?

He wasn’t awake long enough for the bathroom to look like a forest if he squints hard enough, or for the room to feel like an icebox.

He looks down to keep reading.

“Kyle?”

There’s a voice. It’s not the voice that he can hear, the faceless whisper, the thing he’s started to waver with resolve; it’s something familiar. Someone he can trust. A name he can’t place, inviting, warmth that he has on the tip of his tongue--

There is air in his lungs, suddenly, and he chokes on it, and someone’s hand is on his shoulder. It drives away the terror in his mind and the voice that he can hear, the solemn, inviting coldness that calls out to him from Jurgen Leitner’s novel; it shrinks back when that hand clamps down as a column of fortitude. Another deep breath is taken. He looks up.

It’s Jimmy. 

His hair is tousled from sleep and he can spot places near his mouth where he wiped away drool after waking up, he _always_ drools when he falls asleep weird, and there is worry etched deep into his face, eyes crinkled at the corners with care. He thinks there might be love in those eyes.

He is desperate to believe that.

“I… how long was- I don’t. What.” There’s not enough wherewithal to try and string together a proper sentence, his energy devoted to staying upright, trying to figure out what’s been going on in his place, a shell of the thing he was before the night began and what he is now, and Jimmy gently reaches for the book.

He yanks it away. “Don’t touch it. Don’t you touch it.”

“... Kyle, I- I’m worried. You weren’t- you look- look really sick.”

“I think I’d be, I, would be able to know if I were sick, don’t you… don’t- don’t fucking _talk_ to me. Don’t.” He doesn’t pull away, but he keeps the book at arm’s length. There’s something special about it. There’s something terrifying and menacing about the book, so large in its presence in his body and mind and life now that he’s terrified to let someone else take hold, lest it takes hold on them, too, so he keeps it away.

“... is- is it the book?” There’s a long pause after that, and then a hitch of the breath, and he feels something wet fall down his cheek.

He’s crying.

He’s at war, the two parts of his brain, the piece that’s still him, still fighting, trying to climb back to the surface of whatever’s taken hold of him and rattle some sense back into his brain, plead with the rest of his brain to let go, and the other half of him taken hold by this monstrous sick _thing_ , that thing which only he can hear, that calls to him even now, held back by the love the whole of him feels for the man still trying to help right next to him.

… he prays. He hears no answer, as is expected, but he finds some vague comfort in the notion of a god that listens.

“I just. I wanted to… to know.” He catches his breath. “What it did. And… what it. What it _meant._ ”

“I know. You’re a cu- curious guy. I think that’s pretty n- neat of you, most of the time, Kyle, but- but right now, I need you to… to- to put down that book. Okay?” He looks down at Tales from The Beyond, from the library of Jurgen Leitner, and he blinks, the edges of the room blurring together.

What is the price of knowing? Is it worth losing himself for this forbidden, sickly, destructive knowledge? It’s taking the room with it, it’s taking him with it; he doesn’t want it to take Jimmy with it. If not for himself… then for Jimmy.

For Jimmy. He’ll do it for him.

It’s never been about him, anyways.

In one swift motion, he throws the book as hard as he can across the room, and it hits the wall with a satisfying thump. It does nothing to knock the sickness out of him, but the voice _stops_ , and some of his energy returns. “... do you… do you think there’s a place where we could. Find. You know- a, a, uh--”

“A para- parano- paranormal investi- investigator?”

He chuckles, but it catches him off guard and he’s sent into a choking fit, chest heavy with the strain of it all. It’s hard to catch his breath after. “I guess.”

“... I might have- have heard about a, a place that could he- help. Come on.”

He gets up, but he does not forget to take his jacket with him as he goes.

He does not forget the book, either.


	2. Middle

Jonathan Sims is very busy. There’s too much to sort through, the mess that Gertrude Robinson left behind massive and straining to try and sift through; regardless of his constant malaise at having to deal with live statements, the possibility of an actual faker or storytelling fool rises with each passing day, and he is loathe to finally face that in full.

He doesn’t think he has the patience.

“-- no, wait, you really can’t, uh, see him right now, see, he’s busy-- ah!” What in the _world_ is Martin getting up to. “Oh, well… I, okay, I suppose, if you’re just going to… barge on down the corridor like that, are you _sure_ you didn’t need us to call--”

“Martin? What’s going on?” Standing up a little from his desk, Jon peers over at the doorway, and then he stops dead in his tracks, locking eyes with the young man that just walked through.

There’s a sickly air about him, a grey pallor to his skin and a flush high in his cheeks that indicate a fever, and his gait is unsteady, but stubborn and true. He has this _look_ in his eyes as if he’s found some forbidden knowledge only he shares with the world, like he regrets having seen it in the first place, and he’s only seen that look in spare few people, ones who’ve dealt with the unfortunate truths this world has to bear already.

“... I assume you’re here to give a, uh, statement? Do you perhaps want to… sit down? Martin, can you grab him something to drink-”

“I don’t fucking need anything to drink.” Oh. He’s American. Jon doesn’t see that very often, hardly at all, considering that this is a British archival system. “I just… want to talk. Give you this.” The boy holds something out.

It’s a book. “Right. You’re here for a statement. Exactly. That will require sitting down, fortunate for your part, so… please take a seat.”

The boy ambles on towards the chair and carefully, slowly seats himself down into it, setting the book down onto the table, and Jon finally has a chance to get a good look at it. It looks… _worn_ around the edges, hungry in a way he cannot place, and he almost immediately knows what kind of book it is without having even seen the author’s name. No other book would ever invoke such a visceral reaction from him. No other kind of book _could_.

This boy has brought a Leitner into the Archives and looks alive enough to tell the tale about it. What in the _goddamn._

“All right, uh… tell me your name, then.” He clears his throat and goes to click on his tape recorder. Much to his surprise, it’s already running. He must have neglected to turn it off earlier while reading through statements.

“Kyle Broflovski. This isn’t… this won’t go in, like… you guys aren’t the government, you aren’t keeping my information to sell it or something? This isn’t a scam?”

“I would hope not. Statement of Kyle Broflovski, regarding…” He makes a motion with his hand for Kyle to start talking.

“... I found a book that tried to kill me.”

Hm. Quite. “Statement regarding a strange occurrence with a book he found that apparently tried to kill him. Statement recorded direct from subject, January the 31’st, 2016. Statement begins.”

“... so I just- I start talking?”

“Yes, that’s… mostly what that implies. Start from the beginning, if that helps you any.” He folds his hands on the desk and makes an effort to keep his hands as far away from the book as possible. Kyle pulls out a notebook, and he watches as he fiddles with the little metal rings binding it together. Seems almost like a nervous tic, if he didn’t know any better. Something calm and methodical.

“Okay.” The boy takes a deep breath, seems to steady himself, then starts talking.

“So it started in this… weird ass bookshop, you know? We, my group, we’re not from England, obviously, not even close, we’re from, uh- Colorado, in America, we were visiting on some stupid fucking school trip. It’s not terrible, you know, it’s just really rainy and the food kind of sucks, no offense, and I haven’t really been having that much fun, so I thought it’d be kind of fun to fuck with my friends a little by making them look at books with me. Like old times.” A nod. It’s a cue to keep talking, and Kyle takes it in stride. He listens in earnest.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like _this._ ” It never is. He doesn’t comment, though. “I found this book. The shopkeeper… he almost seemed like he knew what it was. What it could do. I didn’t know, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken it, but he practically forced me to take this thing with him, and it wasn’t like I could tell the guy no, because we could have gotten thrown out for trespassing without buying anything, and as much as I love seeing that fat asshole who’s always following me around get what he deserves, that wouldn’t have been his fault, it would have been mine, and that would be kind of shitty of me. I’m not a bad guy. I just- I think that sometimes, people should get what they deserve, not things they don’t deserve. That’s all.” 

It’s not a particularly hurtful sentiment, but definitely an interesting one coming from what seems to be a highschool aged boy. A little nihilistic for his age.

“So we go back to the hotel after that, we’d kind of been wandering out and about sightseeing for a while before that, and everyone was kind of tired? Yeah.” He wobbles in the chair, just a little, and Jon sits up straighter, alarmed. His physical state seems to be deteriorating while speaking, not obviously, just in increments he can’t see, and he’s starting to worry that the boy won’t stay conscious for the rest of the statement.

Though that shouldn’t be his immediate worry; his immediate worry should be the health of the person giving the statement. Not… whatever the case, he’s alert.

“I’m fine. I-” He steadies himself, then continues. “We’re good. I… where was I? Right-- everyone decided that they were going to go out and get some food, but I wanted to figure out what the fuck was up with this book, you know? It felt… _off_ , somehow. Like there was something inside the book waiting to crawl out and strike at you, this kind of… _terror_ that only hides away when you look at it, comes out in full when you look away. I wanted to know what it was. So I didn’t go with them to get food. I stayed behind, and I, I started to read through it.”

It’s then that Kyle decides to place the notebook down next to the book being described, and he pushes it towards him, hands trembling ever so slightly. “I wrote down notes in here, what I found when I was reading it, I, if you want to keep that on file or something, feel free to, you know? Anyways, it started out _weird._ It was just the same words over and over for a few pages, and I thought, well, maybe this old bookshop owner guy was playing a prank on me, or something. Seems about right. Then I tried to highlight where it changed and things went… they went _wrong._ ”

He’s keeping an eye on the way Kyle reacts to that, and there’s a noticeable shift in posture, the uncomfortable squirm of someone desperately trying to hide the feeling of being sick. He prays the boy doesn’t vomit into a trashcan. 

“The moment the sharpie hit the paper, I was overcome with this… this almost _violent_ wave of nausea. It tore through me, and obviously, I vomited, what else was I supposed to do, but it came out of nowhere. The only reason I can come up with for it happening in the first place was when I marked the book with a sharpie, it must have _known._ It knew, and it hated it, so it punished me, because that wasn’t what it wanted me to be doing. After that, I had to take a moment to try and recover, and I went back to reading. At some point, there was blood on the book, and I, I don’t know where it came from, it didn’t come from me- it couldn’t have come from me! It flaked off of the book when I touched it and stuck to my skin, but it was obviously blood, you know? It couldn’t have been anything other than blood, but I don’t know where it came from, other than the page and the book and--” He takes a breath. It sounds laboured.

“It gets… a little fuzzy, from there, to be honest, and then Jimmy showed up. Jimmy’s my friend, he came on the trip with us, that’s not an important detail.” All details are important, he thinks, but he does not voice it, and lets Kyle continue. “He brought me something from the place they all ate at, and it was… sweet. The weirdest thing, though, was when he gave me the food, and when I opened the container, it was all _rotten._ Like… visibly rotting, there were little bugs and things crawling in it, almost like it’d been sitting in there for days, left open. There’s no way that it could have been served like that, it would have been noticed, so the only reasonable explanation was that this book had something to do with it. It ruined the food. It didn’t like it.” That’s… an alarming detail. He marks that down as important in his mind.

“He gave me his leftovers, though, it wasn’t a, a huge deal, then we watched some Terrance and Phillip and passed out. It was… nice. The one thing I can’t figure out is why being further from that book and more in the present made me feel better. It was like… the longer I was away from it, the less attention I paid to it, and the further out of my mind it got pushed, the less hold it had over me in the long run. It wasn’t able to get to me then. I think I must have woken up at some point, though, because of how I fell asleep, or something, and then I… I went back to the book. It was waiting for me.”

There’s a tremor to his voice as he speaks. “You have to believe me when I say I’m not crazy, okay? I’m a rational man. I don’t see things, I don’t hear things, and maybe I panic sometimes, but I’ve been through enough shit to warrant that kind of reaction. When you’ve seen the things I have, you learn to recognize the supernatural. It’s real. This was _beyond_ that. This was something reaching out to me from that book and trying to drag me into whatever sick fuckng game it was playing, and by the time I’d realized that something was so wrong I couldn’t turn back, it was, it had this _forest_ of _mold_ it was trying to bring me into, I didn’t think I was capable of saying no to it--” Oh, lord. Jon doesn’t do well with people who start to panic, and he’s quite sure this boy is about to.

“Then Jimmy woke up, and I.” There’s a long pause after that, a stretch of silence, and then Kyle, quieter then before but more firm, more resolute, starts to speak again. 

“It was like coming out of a dream. The moment he was able to get that book away from me, after I threw it, it was like waking up from a nightmare, but the nightmare was real and still had a hold of me. It… it _still_ has a hold of me, I think. I can’t… it’s hard to process what’s going on, but nothing is _right._ I want you to take this book as far as possible and away from me. I don’t want to see it. Please. God. I just- you believe me, right? You don’t think I’m crazy?”

That’s the end of the statement, he supposes. A finality to the question, small and shaky, by the end of it, confused and terrified, and he gives Kyle another once-over. He looks over the book very, very carefully.

It is indeed a Leitner.

“I do believe you, Mr. Broflovski. I think you’ve had a very dangerous run-in with a particularly harrowing artifact, and you did the right thing bringing it to us. I think we’ll be able to properly contain it, here, and I suggest you seek medical attention, because from your description, it sounds like nothing short of a miracle you managed to get as far as here with the state this book left you in. Thank you for bringing this to us.” He doesn’t want to touch the book. Kyle stands up, trembling, and nods.

“Cool. Yeah. You… thanks. For believing me.” Off he goes. Jon watches him go, and he sees Martin follow, and that’s that, he supposes. 

“... well. That was… informative.”


	3. End

“Follow up.”

Jon shuffles a couple of papers and slides into his desk, grabbing the tape recorder carefully. It’s imperative that it remains in good shape. Rather, he’d like it to remain in good shape, and in his hands, whatever the reason.

“It seems that Mr. Broflovski’s encounter was indeed with a Leitner. I’ve had Martin do some research on the previous whereabouts of this book before it reached Mr. Broflovski’s hands, and he was able to track it to a small bookstore down on Fifth; unfortunately, when he went to ask the bookstore owner about the book in question, he denied any attempts at questioning, and promptly turned Martin away. As far as we can tell, he was in possession of this book and sold it to Mr. Broflovski, but have no true evidence to back this up.”

He looks down at some of the papers, then sighs.

“As far as the state of Kyle Broflovski goes, as it turns out, he was taken via ambulance from the front of The Magnus Institute not long after our initial statement recording. It seems that his physical state had deteriorated far enough that he’d passed out, and no attempts from staff or passerby would wake him. Tim was able to get his condition state, and it looks like it says here that he’s been diagnosed with… acute liver failure, along with a very nasty case of viral pneumonia, though they’ve managed to isolate and stabilize his condition, and is expected to make a full recovery.”

Jon rubs at the bridge of his nose for a moment, then sets the papers down and looks at the tape recorder, lost in thought for a moment or two. “... to survive an encounter with a Leitner and only barely come out of it… what kind of luck does someone have to have to do that? Every statement I’ve read concerning one of his books, the person giving the statement is almost always in some state of disarray, but never in this kind of state. Yet another case of Jurgen Leitner’s frustratingly terrible happenings.”

It’s about time to wrap this up, he thinks. “Of course, when are things ever easy? I can only hope that things go easier for the poor boy.”

The statement ends.


End file.
